Monday, September 29, 2008

Congress voted NO today on the bailout. A lot of the progressive blogs I follow (and respect) seem to think this was bad and are laying the fault at the feet of house repubs. Now, most house repubs are indeed concerned only about their skin and I'm not gonna argue that but.......I am not so upset about the vote, all in all. I am obviously no expert, but I want to see some accountability other than vague "compensation limits" and "this is a buy-in not a bailout" bullshit.

Of course Wall St was going to react badly. Some of it is shock that they didnt get their way. Some of it is "Let's scare the average bastard and take this baby down". Don't give me this bullshit about our losing a trillion dollars today because of 650 points on the NYSE etc. 'Cos when the street went from 10K to 14K, by their math we made six trillion or so, so this should be a normal 'correction' right? And all that money just flowed into your homes in crashing waves during those times right? So what's a little correction?

Unless........ most people didn't make out like bandits on the way up, but are being saddled with the losses on the way down. Hmmm.

I think we should call their bluff. Fuck it, don't give them a bailout unless we actually buy in---as in ownership and executive powers in the investment banks that fucked up (I know, they're not investment banks anymore), including revoking all their fucking bonuses for this ridiculously bad performance---- and see how low this will really go. I'm betting the fucking rats find a way to save their skin (and by extension don't let the economy collapse). I don't respond well to blackmail, and I don't think you should either.

3 comments:

Yeah, I gotta say I wasn't weeping at that one either. Did you see an interesting article in the Times a couple of days ago, comparing our crisis to Sweden's? It was useful because it pointed out what Sweden did right (get the government to own investments in these institutions, instead of buying them outright....if I understood correctly--this is SO over my head) so that when money started flowing again, the government made a lot of its cash back.

Our plan is apparently not structured like that (again, I'm out of my depth here but that's my understanding) and it stands to reason we should be, like, debating this a bit.

I agree that the whole thing was way too rushed. So what if the Street drops like a rock for a few days? Better to get it right, or at least as right as we can get this godawful catastrophe.

And yes, Buffett's the only person I trust on this too. Sad.

Oh, and Pelosi got played like a piece of vinyl. She should never have put that vote up if she didn't know for certain she had the votes to put it through. Now she looks like a moron.

Great link Dr.J---I hadn't seen it. Thanks! And---"it stands to reason we should be, like, debating this a bit"--- Totally agree. How did Congress jump into this without hearings/testimony/advice on record from a bunch of independent economists? If we can't spare a day or two to have emergency hearings, if the disaster is that imminent, then I call treason on the assholes who let it get to this point----and this request for "BAILOUT NOW" is pure freaking blackmail.